


Boy next door

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abuse, Harry Potter Has a Saving People Thing, Hogwarts Era, M/M, POV Draco Malfoy, Redemption, Sad Harry Potter, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-26 03:17:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20735363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Draco Malfoy has a neighbor. A neighbor who is in obvious pain. Draco decides to help him. But everything changes when he saves Draco.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Must Have Been The Wind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19229092) by [MusicPlotter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicPlotter/pseuds/MusicPlotter). 

Draco was finally doing it. He stood at the door of his cousin's apartment and walked inside. His parents were letting him stay with her during summer this year since the Malfoy Manner currently was a death eater hotspot. He was excited to live with her. Cassie was a newly found part of his family and not yet corrupted by death eaters. She was in her 7th year this year, a Ravenclaw, and his long lost cousin. She currently stood standing in the doorway holding one of his many boxes.

“Come on Draco help me,” she pleaded. “These aren’t even mine!” she said pointing to the large stack of boxes next to her.

“Help yourself,” he replied rolling his eyes.

She proceeded to throw a box at him. Draco ducked just in time. He looked up to see her satisfied smile and grumpily agreed to help. They spent most of the day unpacking boxes and finally it was done.

“That was annoying,” Draco moaned. “Why couldn’t we do it with magic?”

“Too easy,” Cassie said, “it would be like cheating.”

Draco dramatically collapsed on the couch. Cassie left to go pick up some dinner from a muggle cafe. Draco spent some time complaining about Muggle food but eventually gave in. He lay on the couch and stared at the ceiling. He was drifting off until suddenly he heard something familiar. The sound of a voice. A hopeless voice. It sounded sad and familiar for some weird reason. He jumped up, it had come from the apartment next door. He rushed outside and ran to the nearest door. There was only one other apartment on this floor so he quickly knocked. He prayed it wasn’t a wizard who would recognize him. He smoothed back his hair and began to prepare what he might say carefully in his mind. Draco jumped when the door opened. In the doorway stood a teenager in a hoodie that hid his face from view. 

“Hello, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“My name is Draco Malfoy, I just moved in next door. I believe I heard someone,” you, someone in horrible pain, “getting injured.” That was not it.

“Well it wasn’t from here,” the teenager said. His head was facing towards the floor and Draco was able to see the dark raven color of his hair. His hands were tan. He was covering one of them with his sleeve. He looked skinny in the oversized sweatshirt he was wearing. He was slightly shorter than Draco and he didn’t look up at all, just stared at the floor. 

“Boy who is it!” he heard an angry voice yell. The teenager turned around to respond.

“It’s one of the neighbors sir,” he said and he turned to face back towards Draco. “Well thank you for your concern, let us know if you need anything else.”

“Are you sure everything's alright?”

“I couldn’t tell you if it wasn’t,” he muttered. 

Draco nodded and watched the boy slowly close the door. Draco stood there for a while, he didn’t entirely believe the boy and he wanted to see, or at least hear, what happened. Boy, was what he was called, Draco assumed that wasn’t his name. He hadn’t looked at Draco at all, he hadn’t given his name either. Draco was curious. He felt the boy needed his help, but if so why had he refused it. Maybe Draco was wrong and he hadn’t heard anything, but his ears had never tricked him in the past.

“Get back here boy! The floors won't clean themselves!” he heard the voice yell again.

He listened to the boy sigh as he walked farther away from the door.

“Yes sir,” he said.

“Better than that you useless disappointment!” he heard the voice yell again.

“Yes sir,” said the boy. 

He heard footsteps walk through the apartment.

“Be more grateful, you should be happy to do this!” the angry voice yelled. He heard a thud and a slight groan as he began to walk away. Draco winced at the sound. He was sure he heard it this time. He wondered why the boy hadn’t wanted his help. He decided he would find a way to assist the boy. Draco turned away to walk towards his cousin's apartment feeling full of sympathy. When Draco asked Cassie, she told him all she knew about the muggles next door. There were three people she described, a tall woman with dark hair, a big man with grey hair and a wide blonde boy. None of them fit the description of the person he had seen. Did the boy never go out in public, if so why? Draco shrugged it off and layed to watch a movie with Cassie until he fell asleep.

*

“Get up Draco,” Cassie said as she shoved him off the couch.

Draco groaned as he fell onto the floor. His back was sore, he had no idea why. He let Cassie pull him to his feet without much resistance. 

“I’m going to work, get yourself from breakfast and don’t break anything,” she said.

Draco nodded his head and watched as she left. She had a job at a muggle store to make money so Draco knew she would be gone for most of the day. He pulled himself back on to the couch and found himself staring at the ceiling once again. He heard some yelling from next door and his mind was quickly focused on the boy. He checked his watch, it was 5:00 am. Draco decided that he would go to visit the boy again today but he didn’t want to seem overly concerned. He made a plan as he slowly drifted off for an early morning sleep. 

*

His morning was uneventful. He woke up again at 8:30 and quickly began his morning routine. He got up and had a shower, brushed his teeth, and combed his hair until he was satisfied with it. Draco decided that making breakfast would be too much work so he grabbed an apple and ate it quickly. All the while, he was listening for more noise next door but none came. There were a couple of footsteps but no more yelling. Draco decided to go next door around noon. He still had a couple of hours to kill so he sat and read his book.

When noon came Draco had carefully formulated his plan. He wanted to get to know the boy so he would have to be unnaturally nice. Draco grunted at this idea, but he had thought for a while about it and there was no going back now. He walked out of his cousin's apartment and turned to the door down the hall. He knocked, hoping that the boy would answer. A boy did answer, by his appearance Draco guessed he was the blonde and wide one Cassie had described. 

“What do you want?” he asked with a tone of annoyance in his voice. 

“I need some help moving something,” Draco replied.

The boy nodded and turned around. He didn’t look anything like the other one, he was taller than Draco, he looked well-fed, and wasn’t as polite. 

“FREAK!” he yelled. Draco jumped at the sound of his voice. 

“He’ll be here in a minute,” the boy said calmly.

He saw a flash of black hair from the kitchen and watched as the boy from last night reappeared with a hoodie hiding his face. He walked towards Draco.

“This boy needs your help,” the blonde one said. “I would do it but who would play my video games.”

The boy under the hood grunted. “I’m sure you do Dudley,” he said as he walked through the door. 

“Thank you,” Draco said as he walked out into the hallway. He was happy with how his plan was working so far. He had assumed if he asked any one of the neighbors for help, they would send the boy.

“What do you need help with?” he asked, still staring at the ground. 

“Moving boxes,” Draco replied.

“Okay,” said the boy. 

They walked in silence until they entered Cassie's apartment. Draco and the boy both picked up a box.

“Downstairs?” asked the boy. 

Draco nodded. “What’s your name?” he asked. Draco wasn’t going to spend the day calling him boy. That would be rude.

“Umm… Charlie,” he said. Draco noticed the hesitation in his voice.

“Alright, Charlie. Who are those people you live with?”

“My uncle, my aunt, and my cousin. They took me in after my parents died.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, you seem like a good person, you tried to help I guess, you didn’t kill them,” Charlie said.

Draco immediately felt guilty. He wasn’t a good person. He had tried to kill people. He had helped his parents do horrible things. He felt bad about that. 

“Um… yeah.”

They didn’t talk much more after that. They finished loading the boxes and walked back to there separate apartments. They exchanged goodbyes and Draco went inside. He spent most of the day thinking, he wasn’t a good person, and unless he changed his ways, he assumed it would stay that way. He decided to go see Charlie again in a few days. There was something wrong, he was sure. He had noticed how Charlie acted. Never looking up, being extremely cautious when he moved around the apartment, not revealing a lot about himself. Draco was going to help someone for the first time in his life, or rather the first time it mattered.


	2. For the greater good

Draco waited a week before returning to attempt to help the boy. It had been an uneventful week at that. He slept, read, and attempted to cook. He had written to Pansy and Blaze a couple of times but nothing eventful had happened. It was morning when he knocked on the door, he had a plan, he needed help moving his couch, they would finish and he would ask Charlie to lunch and then hope that he would reveal some information about himself. The door opened to the boy Dudley standing in the doorway.

“I need some hel-”

“FREAK!” Dudley yelled.

Charlie walked quickly towards the door. He wasn’t wearing his hood up but as soon as he saw Draco he pulled it on. Draco had caught a glimpse, that was all he needed to confirm his suspicions. Charlie had a black eye that was half-hidden by round glasses. His cheek had been bruised and his green eyes were filled with fear. He was being abused, Draco was sure. He walked out into the hallway, Draco quickly followed. He shoved down his thoughts for now. He had to make Charlie trust him. 

“I need your help to move the couch.”

Charlie was staring at the floor again. “Okay.”

They walked into Cassie and Draco's apartment and started to silently move the couch. Draco needed to make small talk.

“Nice weather this weekend,” he said.

“Yeah, the sky is quite beautiful,” Charlie said.

“What did you do this weekend?” Draco asked.

“Not much,” he responded.

How vague. Draco hated it when people were vague, it reminded him of Potter whenever he had to answer questions. If Potter could only see a glimpse of this boy, his chosen one, hero complex would kick in. But no, for once Draco was doing the saving and Potter was probably off being treated like a king by his muggle family. Draco rolled his eyes as he sat thinking about Potter and focused his attention back to Charlie. 

“Do you read at all?” Draco asked.

Charlie shook his head. “My aunt and uncle never really let me,” he said. 

The thought of not being allowed to read by your guardians was Draco's breaking point. It was saving time. Draco was about to speak but Charlie spoke first.

“It won’t work you know, you can’t save me.”

Draco was shocked. It took a moment to formulate a response. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I can’t escape it, it’s my fate, I can suffer for a couple of years,” he hesitated before finishing, “for the sake of the greater good.” He shook his head and put it in his hands. 

Draco felt sympathetic, Charlie was in obvious emotional pain. “They're torturing you!” Draco exclaimed.

“And I can deal with it. It’s for me to do and it’s not your problem,” he said. He looked up for a second before forcing his head back towards the floor.

“I could help you,” Draco begged. Wow, that was new, he was begging to help a stranger. 

“You don’t understand,” he said.

“My father abused me too,” Draco said, “I know what it’s like.”

“I’m not being abused, mistreated maybe, not abused.”

“Okay then when was the last time you ate, if you weren’t abused it would be today, but it's not so when was it?”

The answer was almost a whisper, “a week, but don’t start feeling sorry for me,” he said, “I have to do this.” 

Draco shook his head. That was unbelievable. Maybe a couple of times his father hadn’t let him eat for a day or two, but never a week. He remembered how hungry he had been when that happened. Charlie was perhaps the strongest willed person he had ever met. He must be starving but he didn't show it, weak but not willing to accept help.

“Why?”

“For the greater good,” he said, “goodbye Draco Malfoy, thanks for trying.” Draco watched as he walked out of the apartment and headed towards his own. Draco couldn’t move, he was shocked. His plan hadn’t worked. Charlie wouldn’t let Draco help. For the greater good. That's what he had said. What did that mean? He couldn’t give up that easy. He would give it some space and return in a week. It was a good plan. It would work. It would have too.


	3. One last try

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of short. Sorry, I guess I got carried away so I'm going to try and finish this today.

It was a couple of days later when Draco once again heard the inescapable hopelessness of Charlie's voice coming from next door. Draco groaned, why wouldn’t Charlie accept help. His mind had been occupied with that question since their last encounter. He decided to floo over to Pansy’s to talk to her. He arrived at her house in an instant. She stood in the living room smiling.

“I was wondering when you would come over!” she said excitedly as she leaped into Draco’s arms. 

“Well I'm here,” he said as he released her. 

She wore a big smile on her face. “So how’s savior Draco Malfoy going?” she asked.

Draco groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

“What’s wrong, turned out to be a little brat,” Pansy said carelessly.

“I wish, he won’t let me help him.”

“It can’t be that bad if he won’t let you help,” she suggested.

“The last time I talked to him he hadn't eaten in a week,” Draco replied.

Pansy gasped and dropped the pen she was holding. “Oh Merlin, that's horrible.”

“I know, but he keeps saying it has to be like that, he says it’s for the greater good.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” he replied, “I try to do something good for once but somehow I can’t do anything.” He sighed.

“Maybe you should just try one more time. He has to accept help at some point.”

“I don’t know Pansy.”

“Please!” she begged.

“Fine, but if it doesn’t work don’t blame me.”

They talked for a bit longer before Draco flooed back to the apartment. He had to do it. Only one more time. So he walked to the neighbor's apartment. He knocked on the door swiftly. Dudley appeared. Draco didn’t even have to say anything this time. 

“FREAK!” Dudley yelled. 

Charlie came from the kitchen and pulled on his hood. He walked into the hallway without a word. 

“Why did you come back, I already told you it won’t work,” he said without looking up. 

“I need some help,” Draco lied.

They walked into the apartment. 

“Will you help me..” quick thinking Draco, “move the table.”

“Where too?” he asked.

“Over by the window,” Pansy was right. Improv was fun. 

They lifted the table and moved it quickly. Charlie turned away as soon as it was finished.

“One more thing,” Draco said, “will you help me take the garbage down?”

Charlie nodded and picked up on of the bags by the door. Draco carried the other and they walked down the stairwell and out to the dumpster. They quickly deposited the trash and walked back towards the front of the building. That was when Draco saw them. Death Eaters, their wands pointed straight at him. He froze.

“You traitor!” One of them said.

Draco was scared. He wouldn’t dare reach for his wand.

“This will show your father!”

The man flicked his wand and began to say a curse. “Avada-” 

“Expelliarmus!” another voice yelled. It was from Charlie. Draco looked over to him to see his hood had fallen off. There stood Harry Potter. Before Draco could react Potter has cast another spell and had grabbed him by the wrist. He was filled with shock. Harry Potter was there. Harry Potter had saved him. Harry Potter was Charlie. He was being pulled inside. They didn’t stop running until they were back up the stairs in Draco’s apartment. He finally fell out of his trance and shook Potter's hand off of him.

“WHAT THE HELL POTTER!” Draco yelled. 

“I’m sorry! Wait what?” he said with confusion.

“Why did you lie?” he demanded.

“About my identity?”

“What else!”

“I didn’t want anyone to know!” he said with guilt in his voice.

“Why? To avoid the attention we all know you love so much!” 

“You really don’t know anything, do you Malfoy,” he said as he walked away. And then once again he was gone.


	4. Now you do

_You really don't know anything do you Malfoy? _ Draco stood frozen in the apartment. He had never expected Harry Potter to save him. His brain was still trying to process everything that had happened. He made a mental timeline; he had tried to help Charlie who he discovered was abused, Charlie didn't accept his help, Death eaters appeared in Muggle London to hurt Draco or capture him, Potter had appeared and saved Draco, Potter was Charlie. Oh shit. Potter had saved Draco, Potter was Charlie. Draco yelled at Potter. Oh, no. All of his memories of Charlie suddenly flashed back into his head. Charlie was abused, but Charlie was Potter. So Potter had lived his entire life like that, being called a freak, _being starved, _Draco remembered with a shutter. Why hadn't Potter told anyone, Draco had always figured Potter loved attention and this would certainly earn him more. Maybe Draco was wrong about him. Potter was being tortured by these muggles but he was still willing to fight for the Mudbloods. He was stronger than Draco thought, one would have to be to still fight. His entire life had been miserable, the muggles hated him, there was a dark wizard trying to kill him, his parents were dead, all he had were his friends who Draco had bullied relentlessly. Potter had just fought back. He suddenly felt horrible for every decision he'd made since he had come to Hogwarts. He had to find Potter and apologize if nothing else. He ran quickly through the door and looked down the hallway. He hastily moved to the neighbor's door and knocked. The next few moments were still. Draco wondered if Potter would ignore him. Soon enough the door opened.

"I nee-"

"He's not here," said the boy named Dudley as he slammed the door in Dracos face.

He wondered where Potter would be, what if the death eaters had found him? Draco didn't know where to look. He decided upon outside by the front door where they had fought the death eaters. He ran down the stairs and out the door, ignoring the strange looks he got. Potter was not there. He looked frantically around the building but there was no sign. Eventually, he gave up. He had searched everywhere. He went back inside and decided that he would walk up to the roof. It was a cloudy day so there wouldn't be anyone else. He was tired from running so he moved slowly up the stairs. Once he reached the door he swung it open without hesitation. And there was Potter. Standing up looking over the city with his shirt covered in blood. Oh no. Draco walked towards him quietly.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Potter jumped. "Uh.. yeah it's okay."

Draco walked over next to Potter in silence. Potter didn't even seem to notice the massive amounts of blood on his body. Draco definitely did, he wanted to help Potter but it seemed like it was risky enough to be talking to him. 

"'How do you live like that?" Draco asked without thinking.

"Like what?"

"Like your being abused Potter"

"I already told you it's for the greater good," he said.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"I can suffer a little for the greater good. I've dealt with it my entire life, even though I hate it, Dumbledore says it builds character."

"Dumbledore knows! You have got to be kidding me! He knows they treat you like this!" Draco exclaimed.

"Uh.. yeah." He shrugged.

Draco was screaming inside his head. That's why he said nothing could help. He was doing it for the entire sake of the wizarding world. Draco couldn't do it, he would have given up a long time ago. He couldn't be a savior, not like Potter. He was a coward, and the boy standing next to him was perhaps the strongest and bravest person he would ever know. Draco wanted to yell. Draco wanted to curse Dumbledore for letting a child be treated that way.

"I couldn't do it, Potter, I would give up."

"But if I give up now what was I even fighting for." 

His statement left no room for argument. Draco stood there looking at the boy who had saved him, who had finally earned his respect, but Draco supposed he should have had it the entire time.

"You're bleeding you know."

"I know."

"I'm sorry Potter if I would have known-"

"Well, now you do." And he was gone. Draco didn't see him for the rest of the summer. When it was time to go back to school Draco had decided that he would try and be nicer. When he saw Potter in the hall they simply shared a smile, he never bullied anyone anymore, and he started feeling better about himself. It was all because Potter, the boy who lived, the boy who loved, the boy who had walked through hell but still smiled. Draco liked that boy. Draco loved that boy. It was his own damn fault.


End file.
